by M.K.Sudarshan
October 29, 2026: Chennai, India
Ānanda: Madhava, there is an old song about a woman whose life was like a “candle in the wind”. She did not know whom to cling to when the rain set in. Her candle burned out long before her legend did.
Madhava: Oh, yes, I think I’ve heard about that old, very popular song… You are thinking of Marilyn Monroe…. Or maybe, the requiem that was played for Princess Diana at her funeral? I think I’ve heard about that song … I haven’t heard it, though.
Ānanda: I am thinking of Trust itself. Suppose we address the song to Lady Trust. Would it not be so true? Her candle burned out long before her legend…
Madhava: Tell me more about that thought you hold now.
Ānanda: We still speak of trust everywhere. Banks call themselves trusted. Governments ask for trust. Newspapers demand trust. Corporations speak of customer trust. Hospitals speak of patient trust. The word survives everywhere, while the reality itself grows thinner and thinner.
Madhava: So, what you’re saying is that the legend outlives the life…. a bit like Monroe and Diana.
Ānanda: Yes. We have inherited only the vocabulary of trust without the conditions that made trust possible: proximity, accountability, shared truth, mutual vulnerability, and the possibility of repair.
Madhava: I must say that’s a powerful elegy indeed. But let us be careful. A legend may outlive a life, yet legends are not always false. Sometimes they preserve a memory of what a people once knew how to do and what they actually did do.
Ānanda: You mean to tell me now that our Lady Trust was once really alive?
Madhava: In smaller forms, certainly. The village moneylender who was known by name. The physician who treated three generations of one family. The teacher whose word was enough. The neighbour who kept a key. These relationships were not perfect, but trust did really have a face.
Ānanda: And now we know trust to be having only a logo…
Madhava: Or a password. Or a verification code…. Or a biometric identity. We have replaced the person with the system, and then wonder why the system feels so cold and heartless.
Ānanda: But systems are necessary, aren’t they? We cannot return to the villages or agrahaaram.
Madhava: No. Nor should we sentimentalise the past. The village could also be cruel, narrow, and oppressive. The question is not whether we should return to smallness, but whether we can restore human accountability within largeness.
Ānanda: How?
Madhava: By refusing to let institutions become anonymous. Every algorithm must have an owner. Every decision must have a reason. Every error must have a remedy. Every power must have a face that can be questioned.
Ānanda: Fine … but when it does not?
Madhava: Then the system may be obeyed, but it cannot be trusted.
Ānanda: Madhava, the song says the lady never knew whom to cling to when the rain set in. Is that not also our own true condition? We have too many institutions and no refuge. No institution that we would want to cling to.
Madhava: Perhaps. But perhaps we have mistaken refuge for control. We want a system that will never fail us. But no such system exists. Even the most righteous institution is made by mortal hands and that might have feet of clay.
Ānanda: Then what can we ever cling to?
Madhava: To what remains reliable in human life: truthfulness where it appears, courage where it appears, mercy where it appears. And above all, to the discipline of becoming reliable ourselves.
Ānanda: Come on, you’re just cleverly turning the question back to me again. Solipsism.
Madhava: Because the death of trust is not only something done to us. It is also something in which we too participate whenever we make promises we do not intend to keep, repeat what we have not verified, or reward those who flatter our anger.
Ānanda: So Lady Trust dies not only by assassination, but by neglect?
Madhava: Yes. And she is revived not by monuments, but by small acts of fidelity.
Ānanda: Perhaps Lady Trust … her candle, after all, did burn out long before her legend.
Madhava: Then let us not merely mourn the legend. Let us see whether an ember still remains beneath the ash.
(To be continued)
